Recently, a video appeared online where a smartphone with a remote thermometer heated up to 51 °C during a stress test. This sparked lively discussions among users who tried to guess the brand of the gadget - they called it Oppo, Huawei, realme, Samsung or Sony.
Overheating of mobile devices is nothing new. Samsung is especially criticized for its “hot” Exynos chipsets, and after the release of Tensor from Google, the issue of temperature has become even more relevant. Heating is affected not only by the processor, but also by the strength of the mobile signal: with weak coverage, the modem works more intensively. For comparison, games over Wi-Fi heat up the smartphone much less.
Manufacturers license ARM cores, some of which are so powerful that standard cooling systems cannot cope. For example, the Snapdragon 888 and 8 Gen 1 are known for their high heat dissipation, while TSMC's 8+ Gen 1 runs a little cooler. The new flagships with Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and 8s Gen 4 show up to 63 °C for the chip and about 55 °C for the battery. Samsung partially "brakes" performance to reduce overheating.
High temperatures are harmful to the battery. The norm is up to 35 °C, after 45 °C intensive degradation begins. For example, at 25 °C modern batteries lose about 3.3% of their capacity after 200 cycles, and at 45 °C - already 6.7%. However, even under such conditions, the phone can last at least two years before a noticeable decrease in service life.
Experts advise users to close resource-intensive applications, turn off GPS and the camera, avoid direct sunlight, and not put the smartphone in the refrigerator when it overheats — sudden cooling is also harmful. For ordinary users, overheating does not pose a great threat, and problems become noticeable only after several years of active use.
